The Truth About Coffee
by Macaulay10
Summary: Lorelai is searching for a piece of paper that she REALLY doesn't want Luke to find.....


Disclaimer- Gilmore Girls, Stars Hollow and ALL the characters belong to.. well, not ME. Anyway, here goes-  
  
The Truth About Coffee  
  
Lorelai ran practically smack into the door of the diner, as she had expected it to be open, but it was already locked for the night. She immediately started banging on it. Luke came out of the back room, preparing to go upstairs for the night, when he heard the commotion. He ran over and opened the door.  
  
"I don't have coffee!"  
  
"No, no, Luke, I lost something when I was here before. Its'...." She stopped, taking a breath. "It's a piece of paper."  
  
"I didn't see a piece of paper," he said, standing back to let her in, as she was clearly coming in, invited or not.  
  
"Well did you clean?"  
  
"No, I thought I'd try out a new, dirty diner routine, see how long it takes to get bacteria in the food and kill all the customers, Taylor's my test subject, OF COURSE I CLEANED!"  
  
"You know Luke, it's a good thing that you don't drink coffee, I can't imagine what it would do to you," she said, shaking her head at him.  
  
"You know, that's funny, when I first met you, I thought that exact thing... and then I SAW," he said, shaking his head at her, feigning frustration as he always did with her. "Okay, if I help you find this, you'll get out of here?"  
  
"Why thank you, of course," she said, deadpan.  
  
"Okay, what is this paper?"  
  
"Uh, remember before when I came in here, and I was writing in the corner?"  
  
"Lorelai, this may come as a shock to you, but I don't keep a journal of your day-to-day diner activities. It would be a pretty boring journal if I did. Monday, she drinks coffee. 12 cups. Tuesday, drinks more coffee, breaks her record. Wednesday I die of shock as she is not dead from her crazy coffee consumption---"  
  
"Ah! Bridget Jones! Please! Your diary is killing me!"  
  
They continue looking around.  
  
"I can't believe I dropped it, how dumb can I be?" she chided herself, and then shot a warning look at Luke, if he should choose to remark to that.  
  
"What is this paper?" he asked a moment later, noticing her look.  
  
"Oh, I was just overly-emotional after..." she stopped herself from adding 'after you told me that you and Nicole had gotten married' but finished, instead, with "after Rory left for Yale. So I wrote down a few thoughts while I ate dinner. No biggie, but I just want it back," she said, now on her hands and knees, crawling from table to table. "It's in an envelope, so if you find it, DO NOT open it! It would be like reading someone's diary."  
  
"Okay, okay," Luke said.  
  
Luke put on a pot of coffee for Lorelai, figuring she'd be there for awhile, as it didn't appear she was going anywhere anytime soon. 2 cups of coffee later and still no paper found, Lorelai reluctantly decided to leave and look at home and in her pants pockets again.  
  
Luke locked up and walked upstairs to his apartment. He picked up his mail, and noticed a small envelope, and on it written "Luke." Figuring it was something from Nicole, who said she'd be leaving something for him from the law firm, he opened it, finding instead:  
  
*** Luke,   
  
I am telling you this in confidence... and you cannot tell anyone of this confession. But.... while I do love your coffee, it's not why I drink so much of it. It's you. I know, you're thinking, "you drink so much coffee beause of ME, well that makes no sense because I make it very clear about how I hate the amount of coffee you drin...." Well you get the point. And that's not what I mean. Okay, here goes--   
  
I want to spend as much time as I can at the diner.... with you. I could just come in and always ask for a burger, and that could be my thing... I could be the Burger junkie, but if I'd done that, by now you'd have to roll me out of the diner, and so my thing, my excuse, is coffee. You DO make the best coffee, but it's the company over the cup that I come back for so much. You really think that at 9 at night I want a cup of coffee? Have you any idea how many nights I have insomnia and can't sleep because of the late night doses of caffeine in my system? But it doesn't matter. It's worth it. I enjoy it. The argument about my drinking it, the confidences we share, while the steam from the cup warms up my hands on cold days and nights, the discussions about life and all its horrors and promises, and the friendship that formed itself over that blessed cup of java... I enjoy it all.   
  
You. You are why I drink the coffee, and I firmly believe that the coffee is a magical, mystical thing, because in a way, it brought me to you. Sounds odd, right? That coffee brought us together? But it did. In a way, it started what has become the best friendship I've ever had. And then I think about it.... if we are such good friends, why do I need to pretend to be addicted to a substance to spend time with you? It's because I feel like if I came over every time I just wanted to talk to you, or spend time with you, and for no other reason that just that, to see you, you'd know. Instantly you'd know. How I feel. How I have always felt about you. So this is my secret Luke.   
  
I love the coffee...  
  
But I hide behind it.....  
  
To hide from you.....  
  
That it's actually YOU I love. Love always,  
  
~Lorelai  
  
A coffee addict for life-  
  
***  
  
He noticed that he was now sitting on his bed. He wasn't sure when he ended up there, but somewhere in the course of reading the letter, his legs wouldn't support him anymore, and he'd made his way over to his bed and fallen onto it. He couldn't stop staring ahead. He managed to look at the mail in his other hand and on the top of the small pile, noticed a letter addressed to him, with a return address for Nicole's firm. It was an official document. He cursed himself for being so stupid to think that Nicole would have left him anything in such an informal envelope and not figuring that THIS was the paper Lorelai was looking for.  
  
But when he was done with that self-deprecation, he managed a small smile, and read the letter again... and again.... 


End file.
